Politics

There's definitely a theme to the news today that I'm not entirely comfortable with. First, Democrats are trying to insist that Global Climate Change is going to make us all into prostitutes, then Congress finally locates the bipartisanship necessary to pass a bill and it's a regulation demanding the Federal employees refrain from watching adult content on the Internet at work (though, frankly, perhaps they need to watch more, since they're still far to productive for my tastes).

I don't delve much into the Global Climate Change debate, mostly because it seems like there's no real way to be part of the conversation on either side without looking like a complete lunatic, and I already do more than enough of that. While I believe that stewardship of the environment is a very important thing, I'm not sure how the government, which can barely deliver the mail correctly on a good day, and frequently spends thirty times more on an item from a hardware store than it would cost on the black market in North Korea, is qualified to address the tragedies associated with a burning atmosphere and a rising ocean level.

So Liz Mair is gone. The GOP consultant thrown under the bus that is the Scott Walker campaign. But before we get to the Mair story?

Once upon a time the people who worked for a presidential candidate were, believe it or not, longtime loyalists. Think JFK’s brother and campaign manager Bobby Kennedy. Ronald Reagan’s Ed Meese or Lyn Nofziger, Jimmy Carter’s Hamilton Jordan and Jody Powell, George W. Bush’s Karl Rove or, to go back even further in time, FDR’s Louie Howe.

The world changed. Long ago. Somewhere along the line the people working to elect candidates became “operatives.” In the vernacular “hired guns.” Racing around America and indeed the democracies of the world with a set of skills — good skills without question — with loyalty to no one except their own career and gaining professional reputations that in turn earned them a pretty penny. There was nothing necessarily wrong about this — the world turns.

Congress isn't technically exempt from DC's parking laws, and we know they're definitely not exempt from operating as far from reality as possible.

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton is DC's representation in Congress. She's not allowed to vote, and before today, she might have been best known for angrily demanding that the public take the White House at its word, noting that sometimes, the rest of the world doesn't deserve the luxury of understanding the Executive Branch. After today, she will forever be known as the worst parker in Congressional history. This afternoon, when she showed up to hear Afghan President Ashraf Ghani address a joint session, she tried to jam what appears to be a silver Ford Focus in between two cars parked on an angle.

What was it I said yesterday about the solution to partisan politics being united against Obama's nonsense? Seems like the theory works.

The Senate, which has, admittedly, been loathe to pass a budget even when they agree on stuff, joined hands in a bipartisan bear hug yesterday to vote down the model budget that the Obama White House presented to them just a few short weeks ago. And while they have yet to come up with a solid idea of their own, they know, at least, that there's no way in hell that Barack Obama is getting everything - or anything - he wants.

Senators on Tuesday opposed an amendment that would have swapped out the Republican budget with the one rolled out by President Obama earlier this year.

The amendment failed by a 1-98 vote, with Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) voting for the amendment.

Ted Cruz's wife has to go on an unpaid leave from her job at Goldman Sachs while he is on the campaign trail. As a result, Ted Cruz will lose the awesome health insurance that Goldman Sachs provides to the spouses of its workers, and will now be forced onto the Obamacare insurance exchange, where he will have to struggle, tooth and nail, against the faceless Affordable Care Act bureaucracy for subpar health insurance like we all do.

Ted Cruz, one of the loudest critics of Obamacare, will soon be using it for health insurance coverage.

"We will presumably go on the exchange and sign up for health care, and we're in the process of transitioning over to do that," Cruz, a Republican candidate for president, told The Des Moines Register on Tuesday.

Cruz's wife, Heidi, is going on an unpaid leave of absence from her job at Goldman Sachs to join Cruz full time on the campaign trail, Cruz told the Register.

I wouldn't normally go to the Washington Post's "Style" section for insight into the inner workings of the Obama Administration, but since they blew the lid off the soon-to-be-former Rep. Aaron Schock case with their expose on his Downton Abbey-themed office space, resulting an investigation into his finances that may now lead to Federal charges, I find the fluff worth checking.

And today, it revealed an administration scandal of epic proportions: the Presidential florist has been unceremoniously escorted from the White House and the Administration has been left utterly adrift as they search for a replacement in time for the upcoming State Dinner with the Japanese Prime Minister. And DC is just swirling with speculation.

If you're keeping score, based on familiarity with the Clinton playbook, we have now delightfully exited the "pretend nothing is wrong" phase of Hillary Clinton's private email scandal and we've moved into the "joke about it as though it's funny" phase.

If you recall, this closely mirror's Bill Clinton's response to the Monica Lewinsky scandal, where, after denying his scandal under oath and then recanting it, embraced his public personal as a lovable, yet kind of creepy oaf, bound to haplessly follow the edicts of his nether regions: "Oh, that's just Bill!" and "Did someone say Colombian prostitutes?" Hillary is following suit. Fresh off her UN press conference, where she revealed her own technological vulnerability, as well as her abject commitment to the feminist principle of always playing too dumb to know what's going on, she's confident the situation has been completely resolved. And so, on to the jokes.

Speaking to Wolf Blitzer yesterday afternoon, a fact I'm noting because otherwise, you'd just ask whether Wolf Blitzer was actually still on the air, Rep. Peter King decided to let America know that, if they end up nominating Ted Cruz for President in 2016, well, then, they'll just have to do without Rep. Peter King. Because Ted Cruz is a carnival barker and is probably going to push Peter King off a bridge. Or something.

Rep. Peter King (R-NY) appeared on CNN’s The Situation Room Monday afternoon and when Wolf Blitzer asked him to explain his statement that compared Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) to a “carnival barker,” the Republican congressman opted not to walk back his comments but instead take about a dozen steps forward.

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